Atlantic Salmon Scales as Records of Spawning History

Abstract

A female sea-run Salmo salar L. was caught in an experimental trap in East Apple River, Nova Scotia, during her upstream migration in October 1934. She was captured again in the same trap in 1935 and 1936. Counts of spawning marks on different scales from the same samples were inconsistent among themselves and with the history of the fish as shown by trapping records. Scale readings alone do not give a dependable estimate of the number of times a salmon has spawned if it has spawned two or more times.